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Art-breaking as Napoleon's sold

Andrew Hornery

IT IS not uncommon to shed the detritus of an old relationship when embarking on a new love affair.

Though in Liberal Party power broker Michael Kroger's case, it is quite a bit more than a few once-cherished odds and ends he is ditching for his new lover, the conservative commentator who recently defended ''rough sex'' in her column, Janet Albrechtsen.

The couple flew out of Melbourne earlier this week bound for Paris where Kroger is putting his vast collection of Napoleonic arts and treasures up for sale.

According to the Parisian auction house Osenat, the 150 lots could raise more than $500,000 under the hammer tomorrow in Fontainebleau, just outside of Paris. The auction will take place next to the grand Chateau de Fontainebleau where Napoleon bid a teary farewell in 1814, shortly before his first abdication. No doubt Kroger will be equally moved when he parts ways with his beloved goods and chattels on Sunday.

While not quite on the scale of Fontainebleau, the museum-like collection once greeted guests to the imposing South Yarra mansion which was the home Kroger shared with his ex-wife, Melbourne society queen Ann Peacock, until they split in 2009.

Friends say Peacock did not inherit her mother Lady Susan Renouf's passion for interior design, leaving the decorating duties to her former husband, who apparently is as equally accomplished in party room politics as he is in assembling ancient pieces of Napoleonic objects about the house.

Among the stand out pieces in Kroger's collection is a painting featuring a dejected looking Napoleon, which is being billed as one of the seven original copies of Napoleon after his Abdication by Paul Delaroche. It is estimated to be worth up to €60,000.

And yet perhaps the ''imperial look'' was not quite to Bronte beach girl Albrechtsen's tastes, who dropped $5.12 million in March on a new minimalist, ultra modern home in the beachside suburb following her own marriage breakdown from wealthy banker John O'Sullivan. Albrechtsen did not return PS's calls

HIGH SOCIETY GOES MONOCHROME

On Friday, October 21, the Black & White Ball will celebrate its 75th year at the Sydney Town Hall.

In a far more genteel time, long before reality television stars, footballers' girlfriends and underworld figures ruled the social pages, and the ball was the high point of the Sydney social calendar.

It was a gathering of glamorous women seeking entree to Sydney's elite circles, wearing floor-length white gowns, satin gloves, dancing pumps and dripping in jewels, escorted by ''well turned out'' men in tuxedos.

Formed in 1936 to raise money for the Royal Blind Society, now known as Vision Australia, the committee was initially made up of wealthy housewives looking for something worthwhile to fill their days between tennis fixtures and dinner parties. But over the years the committee evolved and has raised more than $7 million for visually impaired children.

Committee president Susan Diver told PS it was a challenge to maintain its heritage while ensuring the ball's future remained relevant.

''The make-up of the committee has changed … more and more professional and business women have joined, bringing with them corporate connections that result in sponsorship,'' she said.

Many readers will recall former president Nola Dekyvere, a woman who struck both fear and reverence in the hearts of young Sydney socialites. It was she who decreed that black and white become the dress code, and it was she who could grant social life or death on the Sydney scene via her newspaper columns.

In those days names such as Lady Packer, Lady Lloyd Jones (matriarch of the David Jones retailing empire), Mrs Strath Playfair and Lady Spender were the fodder of Dekyvere's rather florid prose. Over the years Vivien Leigh, Maurice Chevalier, Bob Hope and Sir Robert Helpmann all attended the ball.

Well-heeled ladies still giggle about some of the more memorable balls, such as the time Lady Susan Renouf and the late Lady Sonia McMahon dressed up as Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe and lip-synched A Little Girl from Little Rock from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Hopefully today's ''society'' types can keep the ball rolling.